


The long, long road to love (Leads back to you)

by targaryen_melodrama



Series: Now That You Keep Me Warm [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Established Relationship, Fluff fluff and more fluff, M/M, POV Sam Wilson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:08:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21813430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/targaryen_melodrama/pseuds/targaryen_melodrama
Summary: It’s then, of all moments, that it strikes him. Sam’s properly awake now, though he’s still tired and really confused.How the hell had it taken him six months to realize he was in love with Bucky?ーConfessions and fluff for the fourth and final work of this series.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson
Series: Now That You Keep Me Warm [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1147871
Comments: 4
Kudos: 74





	The long, long road to love (Leads back to you)

**Author's Note:**

> A while back, while I was still thinking of ideas for sequels, I wrote a little something about their first 'I love you's', but never finished it. Here it is! Not beta'ed, feel free to point out typos, etc.

Sam comes to slowly, half craving coffee, half chasing sleep, feeling pleasantly sore and contented. He turns to lay on his side, ready to tuck his feet between Bucky’s legs, and only feeling cold flannel instead. 

It’s then, of all moments, that it strikes him. As Sam tries to fight a yawn so he can call for Bucky to come back from wherever the hell he is this early on a Saturday morning, his mind catches the words he was about to say before he actually says them. 

_Come back to bed. I miss you_. 

_I love you_.

What? 

Sam’s properly awake now, though he’s still tired and really confused. 

How the hell had it taken him six months to realize he was in love with Bucky? And how the hell had it come up now, when Sam was oscillating between consciousness and slumber, when he couldn’t have remembered his birthday if someone had asked right at that moment? 

It’s only when warm, familiar hands wrap themselves around Sam’s middle and ease his increasing panic that Sam realizes he _was_ panicking, and, in the very next second, that there’s absolutely nothing to panic about. 

Sam had been surprised at how smoothly he and Bucky had transitioned from friends to boyfriends, and later surprised again at how smoothly their relationship turned physical and more intimate than it already had been. It should be no wonder Sam fell in love just as smoothly, just as softly, with nothing more than his absolute comfort and general contentment as hints as to how he felt. 

“You can’t be thinking this early in the morning,” Bucky says with a soft, low voice, before pressing a kiss to Sam’s shoulder. “‘S bad for your brain. Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”

Sam shouldn’t be going back to sleep. There’s a lot to figure out: when and how he’s going to tell Bucky, for one, and how to move forward if Bucky’s not ready to say it back yet. But it’s hard not to give in to sleep: they’d finished the last of their pre-Spring Break assignments yesterday and, with no assignments or work, or other plans for the say, it’s too early to leave bed. And the only person who could make a lazy Saturday morning better is not-so-gently snoring right next to him. 

Sam’s sleepy, and he’s in love. Planning’ll come later.

*

“I’m thinking cacti,” Bucky says, his fingers tracing the rim of an earth-toned pot. “They look cool.”

With spring coming around, Bucky and Sam were plant shopping for Bucky’s apartment. They’d been heading to Target when they stumbled on a pop up farmers’ market and decided to look there first.

“And they’re hard to kill.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “You gonna bring that up every time?”

“You’re asking like I’m the one who killed 3 plants within a week. Hey, look at these!” Sam turns away from Bucky quickly, and points to the first cool-looking plant he can find. 

Sam’s three step plan for a quick, genuine and responsible confession of feelings had failed just as quickly as Sam had thought it up. The first step, _Find a calm and quiet place to talk_ , was kinda hard to follow through when Sam felt the words on his lips every and any time he was around Bucky since he’d realized the depths of his feelings. 

The night of Sam’s mini-epiphany, they’d gone out to a bar with Val and Thor, and somehow, someway, ended up in a karaoke bar. Sam had been ready to confess right then and there, in the loud, dingy bar, after Bucky and Thor’s ridiculous rendition of _Total Eclipse of the Heart_. 

The very next day at brunch, Sam had started rubbing his temple because the toddler sitting next to them had decided to test out his lung capacity, when Bucky grabbed Sam’s hand, dropped two Tylenols in his palm before kissing his fingers, and pushing Sam’s hand back on his side of the table. Sam shoved the pills in his mouth and swallowed them as fast as he could, because he was not about to tell Bucky he loved him while they were both hungover, over the high-pitched screams of a child. 

And now here they were, in a decently-crowded farmer’s market, with Sam doing his very best not to shout his feelings to the entire borough of Brooklyn because of how gently Bucky was touching the plants he liked. 

_Fucking ridiculous, Wilson. Get a grip_. 

“You okay?” Bucky asks, and Sam realizes he’s been staring at orchids for way too long. 

_Yeah. No. I love you._

Fuck!

“I’m fine, I just一can we go home after this? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

There! At the last minute, and against all odds, step one was making a comeback. Sam could do this.

“Sure,” Bucky says mildly, but he’s frowning now.

Sam grabs his hand to pull him closer and kisses his forehead. 

“Absolutely nothing to worry about, Buck. Everything’s fine, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Bucky says, and though his frown’s not gone, he already seems less worried. 

_Just you wait, baby_. If Sam could step up and make steps two and three fall back in line, everything would be way better than fine. 

*

The train ride home is pleasant enough, however pleasant a train ride can be, and Sam and Bucky even stop by their favorite coffee shop to grab some pastries. Sam can tell Bucky’s mind is elsewhere, though, so he doesn’t waste much time when they actually make it back to Bucky’s place, setting his almond crescent aside for later. Bucky takes a bite out of his éclair, then sets it aside too, and turns around to face Sam, leaning back against the kitchen island.

“So, sweetheart. You wanted to talk about something?”

Bucky’s face is open and warm, as always, and Sam knows this won’t go as badly as his catastrophizing brain tells him it will. But, well, Sam’s nervous, Bucky’s gorgeous ( _what else is new?_ ) so Step Two, _Clarify that you don’t expect him to reciprocate_ , and Step Three, _Confess your feelings in a clear and concise way_ , get all jumbled together, both in his head and out loud. 

“Bucky, I lo一I don’t expect you to say it back or, or feel it back一but I need to tell you. No, I _want_ to tell you how I feel, in a real simple way. Not that my feelings are simple! But this is a calm and quiet place to talk, and, I, uh, I love you.”

What the hell was that? And Step One was not supposed to come out _out loud_ , damn it!

Bucky smiles, the left corner of his mouth lifting first, then fully grins, clearly amused by the whole thing. Sam expects a cute little remark about the word salad Sam had so inelegantly presented to him, but instead, Bucky comes forward, and kisses Sam’s gently. 

“I love you, too.”

Sam smiles back, his stomach a knot of nerves that haven’t dissipated yet and feelings一reciprocated feelings!一for his boyfriend. 

“I _am_ sorry it came out this way, I一”

“Sam, love, you have nothing to apologize for.”

Sam gets his brain and heart to skip right over ‘love’, so he can make his point.

“I一I wanted to say it properly, though,” Sam sighs. “It was一it’s important for you to hear it properly.”

Bucky doesn’t frown exactly, but he loses his smile. His amusement is lingering on his face, but Bucky looks mildly concerned now, in that relaxed way only he can pull off. 

“You know I knew you loved me, right?”

Sam’s cheeks warm up slightly. “ ‘Cause I’m that obvious?”

“I一” Bucky shakes his head. “I didn’t wanna _assume_ ,” he explains with a smile that’s a touch self-deprecating, a look Sam doesn’t see often on him. “But you一you make me _feel_ loved. I can feel it whenever you roll your eyes at me, or when you call to make sure I got home safe. Or...” Bucky adds, stepping back to grab Sam’s hands. His eyes are sincere, and...and _loving_ , and Sam’s breath catch in his throat. “Or that way you look at me when I’m inside you. When you touch me. Like there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. No one you’d rather be with.” Like they can’t help themselves, Bucky’s fingers ghost a fleeting touch on Sam’s lips and are gone as fast as they came. “What I’m saying is that I know, sweetheart. I know, and it’s okay, no matter how it came out. I love you too. So much.”

Sam removes his hands from Bucky’s to wrap them around him. He puts his head in the crook of Bucky’s neck, one of his favorite places on his boyfriend’s body. He still feels like he’s vibrating out of his skin, but it...sort of makes sense? It’s like he’s allowed now, he’s allowed to feel both settled and like he’s about to burst. Sam realizes that behind the surprise, and behind the nerves, it’s kind of always been the way he felt about Bucky. Calm and on fire all at once, a feeling that makes sense now that he knows he’s in love. 

“I love you,” he mumbles into Bucky’s neck, where he lays a long, soft kiss. “I love you.”

Sam hears and feels Bucky’s deep, contented sigh. It goes straight to Sam’s heart and settles right into his bones. “I know. I love you too.”

*

“When’d you realize?” Sam asks in a hushed voice. They’re laying sideways on the couch, Sam’s back to Bucky’s chest. There’s soft white light in the room from Bucky’s laptop that’s playing something neither of them have been watching a while, and a warm, golden glow from the cedarwood and lavender candle Sam had bought at the farmers’ market. 

Sam asks quietly not just to avoid ruining this nice atmosphere they’ve got going, but also because even after everything they’d just told each other, there were things Sam was afraid to say out loud. That used to worry him一the fact that after all this time, after all the times Bucky showed that he cared, he was still afraid. But after what Bucky told him earlier, Sam thinks that might be okay. 

“Honestly? Very early and very late at the same time. I knew I liked you more than I’d liked anyone before. And everytime something special happened between us, I’d tell myself ‘I really, _really_ like him’. Then, we had sex.”

Sam laughs. “You realized you loved me after we had sex?”

“Yes, asshole.” Bucky pokes his side and Sam slaps his hand away. “It wasn’t just the sex. You were一you _are_ 一beautiful and honest and open like I didn’t know you would be.”

 _I was only responding to what you were giving me_ , Sam doesn’t say. He’ll save that for later. “It wasn’t that late,” he says instead, remembering that Bucky had talked about the _very early_ , but not the _very late_.

“Well一no, I guess not, but一I mean, look at you. I don’t know why it took so long for me to realize ‘I really really like him’ was really ‘I love him’. You were pretty easy to fall in love with.”

Sam kisses Bucky on the lips softly, and then, because he’s a little overwhelmed, “For a second I thought you were gonna day I was ‘pretty easy’.”

Bucky‘s eyes widen. “I mean... _you_ said it, sweetheart, not me.”

Yeah, Sam walked right into that one, but can he really be blamed for his mind not being completely alert right now? He _loves_ Bucky. Bucky loves him _back_.

He feels Bucky shift, slow and deliberate, but doesn’t realize his intention until he’s on his back, laid out under him, Bucky’s fingertips caressing the sensitive skin of his lower stomach.

“Trying to recreate how you fell in love?” Sam’s not the best actor, but he’s doesn’t mind recreating this particular story in the slightest. 

“Something like that,” Bucky grins, and Sam reaches up to kiss him so he can taste Bucky’s joy. 

Soon enough, Sam is wrapped up in the same gentle, careful love he has been in for the past few months, and the how, the why and the when stop mattering.

Here and now, words aren’t necessary for Sam to demonstrate his love, or to know that he’s loved in return. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my 50th work on Ao3 which is ridiculously *wild*. I've loved every second.
> 
> Title from U, by Mikky Ekko.
> 
> I am on [Tumblr](https://targaryenmelodrama.tumblr.com) if you wanna drop by!


End file.
